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Are scooters the answer to the cycling gender disparity?Credit:
David Paul Morris /Bloomberg

A new kind of transport is now set to arrive on UK soil. Electric scooters are currently illegal on public roads and pavements, but this week Bird, one of the biggest US start-ups in this area, is launching in the Olympic Park in East London.

Scooters, like bicycles before them, are being presented as a solution to growing congestion and public transport squeezes in cities. But there are also whispers that they could hold the key to a problem that has baffled city planners - why women don’t cycle as much as men.

According to Cycling UK, in 2016 men cycled an average of 87 miles, while women cycled just 20. A Sustrans survey from 2013 found that while 43 per cent of women own a bike, nearly...